


Am I?

by Shay_Nioum



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Can be seen as platonic or romantic Loceit, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Logan Angst, M/M, Sympathetic Deceit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-09-01
Packaged: 2020-10-04 11:54:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20470613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shay_Nioum/pseuds/Shay_Nioum
Summary: Logan ends up hearing something that he wasn't really meant to hear from those who he would consider his best friends, so in his shock and hurt he ends of leaving and staying in the last place he should have run to: Thomas' memories. He can't help but to settle down and look through them, to look through the times that Thomas actually needed him. He doesn't want to leave.Not until it's far too late.





	Am I?

With his back pressed against the wall as he hid from the others Logan’s keen ears listened to the words that were passed between the other sides in question, something in his stomach twisted, a kind of feeling that made his insides writhe and squirm as if someone had lit a fire in his belly. Biting his lower lip he forced himself not to step out and reveal himself, to not make a big show about how he felt about their words, and… to just let it go. He was used to what they said about him, it was practically commonplace for them to say the things that they did, and it was normal for him to just bury those feelings and brush off whatever he was feeling at the time. He wasn’t meant to make a big to-do about hurt feelings, and he wasn’t supposed to let them know that their words stung like the lash of a whip against his heart. Even if it was blindingly obvious, given that they would never be caught dead saying those words to each other.

He was the exception to their rules, he always was. 

Despite this, it didn’t stop the pain that was radiating in his chest, and it didn’t stop the cold salty liquid from running down the surface of his cheeks, and it didn’t stop his lungs from hurting as he had stopped breathing almost three minutes ago once their topic of discussion had shifted to him. The papers in his hands had long since crinkled as his fingers clenched tightly around them, and that was the only sound that came from Logan as he closed his eyes their words ringing in his head. 

_ “He’s so boring right?” _

_ “Yeah, I wouldn’t ever tell it to him to his face, but… somehow he makes the most interesting things come out… so boring and dull.” _

_ “Has no one ever told him that Thomas isn’t in school anymore? He doesn’t need to keep talking like that, and he wonders why his parts of the script are always done last. I hate having to write dialogue for him, its always a drag.” _

Boring. 

That’s what he was to them, just… boring. 

No matter how he tried to change and seem more interesting, no matter how he tried to include fun topics for their amusement, just him talking was enough to make them upset at him. He made everything dull to them, he sucked the life out of the room whenever he talked, they… hated to be near him. Every note card, every vocabulary term that he learned for them, every pun, and every song that he tried to sing for them. It was all for nothing, it meant… nothing to them, just as it always had. 

With each and every word, it felt like another piece of heart chipped and fell away from him, it hurt… it hurt worse than anything he had ever endured before. 

The crumpled up papers fell limply from his hands, swaying in midair for a seconds before landing at his feet. He didn’t even look at them as he stepped on them as he walked away, he didn’t care about the words he had spent weeks trying to come up with for them. Ideas that they would just hate if the words came out of his mouth, ideas that would arguably be meaningless unless it came from one of them or Thomas himself. Right now, his ideas were little more than trash soon to be thrown away, they meant that little to him and the others and ordinarily… that would have hurt him. But nothing.. nothing could ever eclipse the pain that lanced through his heart right now, as their words faded away into little more than tv static on the wrong television station. Even with their words no more than a hum though, those words still circled around in his head like flies circling brightly lit lantern. 

For once he was glad that his absence wasn’t noticed as he walked away from the others. 

He walked, and he kept walking and walking through the mindspace until he reached the very door that he had been seeking out for a while. It didn’t even cross his mind that this might be the definition of ducking out, or that the others would definitely notice him being gone if he walked through that door. But honestly… for once in his long long life, he didn’t care about something. For once he didn’t care about how they would feel about this, or the fact that what he was doing was the furthest from logical that he could ever get. 

He just didn’t want to feel this pain anymore, he wanted it all to go away for once. 

Laughter piped up from behind him, down the hall where the others had eventually moved on from their discussion and had proceeded to their game night. There wouldn’t be any puzzles together, there wouldn’t be a documentary on the television, and there wouldn’t be fruit snacks ready to be eaten in the fridge. Despite it being his night to choose all of those things… they wouldn’t happen, the others would get to decide on what they wanted to play, what they wanted to watch, and just what they wanted to eat. They would get to choose every night from now on.

This was his chance to go back, to assert himself and to tell the others that he hadn’t appreciated what they had said about him, this was his chance to get an apology, or to have his words brushed off… because they were only joking right? And he was taking things way too seriously again… wasn’t he? Anything could happen if he went back, acceptance or… rejection again.

_ “Boring right?” _

Logan’s hands clasped the doorknob, and without so much as a second thought, he pulled the door open and stepped inside. 

_ “Logic,” Thomas chewed on the end of his pencil as he looked over at the logical side while he was coloring a print out coloring sheet of some stars and constellations happily, he was swinging his legs that weren’t anywhere near close to touching the floor back and forth, they both were. A packet of red gummy bears laid abandoned on the side of Thomas’ desk, where both he and Logan would occasionally grab one, biting the head off first, before then moving onto the feet and arms. “Why do stars look so far away? Why aren’t they as close as the sun is? Why can’t we touch them?” He curiously asked, just for Logan’s head to snap up, a bright beaming smile on his face at the question.  _

_ His eyes burned with the knowledge that they both wanted to seek, and the knowledge that Logan already knew at the time. He looked alive then, more than he ever had in the future.  _

_ “Well, Thomas!” He kicked his legs over the side of his host’s bed sitting up even straighter, “That’s cause they are far away! Our sun is the star that closest in our entire solar system, they’re burning millions and millions of light-years away from us! It would take decades for modern space crafts to reach them, and touching them would be impossible… since they’re burning.” Logan eagerly chattered, snagging another gummy bear as he did, only popping it in his mouth once he was done talking. “Cool huh?”  _

_ Thomas’ own smile made Logan’s light up even more. _

_ His host’s pencil came to halt on the paper that he was scribbling on, “You’re so smart L,” He gushed, ignoring the way that his logical side’s ears tinted pink, “I’d like to look at the stars forever, can we… do you think that I can be an astronaut?”  _

_ “Of course,” Logan’s smile warmed a considerable degree, “You can be anything Thomas…” _

Logan snapped awake as he held the memory in his hands, looking around the bookshelves of memories that held everything that he was looking for, he barely noticed the tears that drenched his cheeks. He barely noticed how his body shook with the sobs that so desperately wanted to be free from his chest so badly that it physically hurt him to keep them away. He barely noticed how it took a considerable amount of effort to stand on his legs. It was silent all around him, he couldn’t hear a single noise from outside of the room, and without a clock, he had no idea just what time it was. Was it midnight? Was it the middle of the day? Or was it the start of a new day?

Regardless of all of that though, he stood anyways on his shaking legs nearly tripping over his own feet as pins and needles ran up his legs, all the while almost falling flat on his face as he gingerly slotted the old memory back into its proper place. 

It was a nice memory, a memory of when Thomas had needed him to answer questions that wouldn’t have been too obvious with how young his host had been.

Sitting on the incredibly dusty sofa cushion, Logan pathetically wiped at the tears that were already drying on his face as his breathing came out in husky heaves. He hadn’t even spent two minutes outside of the memories that he held most dear, and already the bad ones were seeping back in taunting him with the words of who he had thought were his friends. The words circled around his mind, taunting him, mocking him, and spitting foul words in his direction. 

He was boring.. boring.. boring.. boring.. boring...

Without even looking, he seized yet another memory off the shelves of Thomas’ deepest most memories and let himself fall. 

_ Thomas sniffled as he looked down at the graded test that had a big fat D scribbled at the top, he could recall the look on his father’s face. The disappointment that was written so deeply into his eyes, the look that told Thomas that he should have done better, that he didn’t care about how hard that the material had been, and he didn’t care how everyone else in the class had failed as well.  _

_ “I thought you studied last night?” The dismissiveness of the man’s voice had cut Thomas deep, and inside of him, Logan flinched back as well. They had both tried their best, it wasn’t his fault nor Thomas’ that they had blanked on the test. It wasn’t his fault that the material had been so hard, and it wasn’t his fault that the equations got mixed up in their head. But even so...  _

_ He had failed, he had failed, he had f- _

“No!” Logan hoarsely howled as he threw the memory away from himself, shivers and shudders crawled up and down his body as he curled his arms around himself as his legs scrunched up to his chest forcing his sobs to become buried in his knees. “I didn’t mean to! I didn’t.. I didn’t… mean to!” The words crawled their way out of his mouth as he pressed his face into his knees, his glasses smooshing against his face at an awkward and somewhat painful angle. “I tried! I really tried! What else could I do? What else can I do?!” Logan honestly didn’t expect anyone to answer, but even so, the silence that hung in the air stung all the more as he openly wept for the first time in what must have been years. 

His weak shaking and trembling fingers clawed at the material of his jeans, as he pressed his wet face against the damp material knowing that all he could do was cry in that moment of solitude. The world outside of the room he was in was silent, with not a single noise coming from the outside world. There were no sounds of alarm, not a single hint that the others might be looking for him. There wasn’t a sound of concern, not a single hint that the others might have noticed that he hadn’t left his room in a long time. There wasn’t even the sound of Deceit or Remus, raising hell now that the logical side wasn’t there to stop them from wreaking havoc on Thomas and the others. 

Of course, they didn’t care. 

The breakdown left him feeling hollow and empty when he finally stood, he felt fragile… like the slightest touch would shatter him into a million pieces from which he would never ever recover from. Just reaching his arm out for the next memory felt like a task all on its own, let alone hold his arm out to grab the light as air memory from where it was resting. He wanted to sleep, god knows how long it had been since he had slept anywhere, let along his own bed and not some dust-ridden sofa cushion. His eyelids ached to shut, to get even the slightest bit of sleep, for even a single second of reprieve. 

He wasn’t going to allow it to happen. 

_ “Looogic!”  _

_ Logan’s head snapped up as soon as Thomas’ wails reached his ears, and without even thinking about it he took off running. Sprinting down the halls while nearly skidding into the wall, before he finally reached the living room. Where Thomas held his bleeding arm, tears running down his flushed cheeks all the while Roman was attempting to console Thomas, assuring him that it wasn’t as bad as it looked. All the while, in the corner of the room, Virgil’s leg anxiously bounced up and down as he had his hood up vaguely muttering things as Patton patted his back comfortingly.  _

_ “What happened?!” He demanded, stalking forward only to stop in front of Thomas, inspecting the rather impressive scrape on his arm that was sluggishly oozing blood. It had a few blades of grass and some specks of gravel in it. The entire injury ran from Thomas’ elbow and up to his arm a few good inches, it was certainly something wail-worthy. “Well?!” He snapped, his eyes darting over to Roman who happened to be the closest at that moment. Just for the creative side hold his hands up in defeat, slinking back guiltily without so much as a word. _

_ So he wasn’t going be getting an answer then… _

_ “Come on,” The logical side sourly muttered, gingerly grabbing Thomas’ uninjured arm before leading him to the bathroom. Sitting him down on the toilet, Logan rummaged around for the first aid kit as Thomas’ sniffles filled the silence between them. It was in there somewhere, buried under the mountain of rainbow bandaids that both Roman and Patton insisted that they needed right then and there, and the hair chalk that Virgil had stood in front of and not moved from until they had bought at least one of every color. _

_ “I’m sorry…” Came the soft voice of Thomas, as soon as Logan had seized the first aid kit, bringing his head out from under the sink to look at him. At Logan’s confused stare his host soon went on, “Roman said that I should try to learn how to fly,” Thomas explained, “I really REALLY wanted to fly to see the stars and I did it without you being there. I should have waited for you, but… I didn’t. So, I’m sorry.”  _

_ Warmth blossomed in Logan’s chest as he kneeled by Thomas, gingerly dabbing the massive scrape on his arm with a cotton ball soaked in rubbing alcohol. He held Thomas’ wrist tight as his host winced and tried to pull away.  _

_ “You are forgiven, not that I would hold this against you anyways.” The logical side finally said, “You now know not to jump from the pine tree correct? So there is no need for me to hold it against you, after all…” Logan’s lips quirked into a quick smile, “Who wouldn’t want to fly to see the stars? Stars are beautiful.” _

_ Tossing the cotton ball away, Logan gingerly pasted the numerous rainbow bandaids against the scrape on Thomas’ arm before gently giving it a loving pat. Just to let out a breathless sound as soon as Thomas slammed against him, his arms worming their way around his neck, giving him a tight but loving hug. For a solid second, Logan didn’t know how to respond to the show of affection, other than slowly working his arms around Thomas giving his back a few awkward pats.  _

_ “Thank you for always being here for me Lo, I love you.”  _

A pair of hands roughly seized Logan’s shoulders, giving him a firm shake as the memory limply fell from his fingers. 

“Logan!” The hands shook him again and again, and the voice sounded more desperate than ever. Almost on the verge of sobs as they shook the logical side awake, his eyes blearily blinking open to see just who was in front of him shaking him so sporadically. “Logan!” Deceit roughly shook him again, something akin to desperation written all over his face as he attempted to rouse the logical side from whatever sleep that had gripped him so tightly. 

A wave of hair fell in front of Logan’s eyes, it was so much longer than it had ever been in his entire life. Falling in loose messy waves around his the base of his throat. It wasn’t neat and it most certainly didn’t feel clean as it brushed against his cheeks, but honestly… that was the last thing he was worried about as his head rolled with the movements of his entire body. Like a puppet that was only connected to one string and it was the string connected to the top of his head and nothing else. His entire body felt sore, and somehow even more fragile than before. The mere idea of standing up, let alone walking made his joints ache all the more for it. 

Just how long had he been in that memory?

His tongue felt heavy in his mouth, but even so, he pushed his words out. “What’re.. wha’re you doin here?” He slurred, the words coming out half-formed and not at all coherent as he would have liked for them too. His head tilted back yet again, exhaustion tugging at his very bones, as his eyelids begged to shut again, to submerge himself in yet another memory. 

Deceit’s hands kept his head steady, his touch oddly gentle and careful. 

“Logan,” The dishonest side’s voice was as soft as his touch, making the logical side lean as much as he could into him. “Logan you have been missing for a month, I’ve been looking everywhere for you.” The concern made so much more sense now, as the other side’s eyes searched him, like a dying man taking in as much water as he could in that very moment. He looked terrified, like in any second now Logan would just be gone in a puff of smoke leaving the dishonest side kneeling there in a room full of memories that weren’t his. “We’ve all been looking for you Logan, we were so worried about y-”

A snort of disbelief left Logan and Deceit’s words stopped right there.

“They’ve been worried?” The words came a little easier to him now, “Now I know that’s a lie, everything I did.. everything I tried to do for them wasn’t good enough.” He spat, his venom clearly not aimed at Deceit, but rather the others that he had so clearly called his friends at one point. “Anything I could ever say.. ever do for them wouldn’t be enough. Just ask them, I’m.. I’m boring. Every word out of my mouth makes the most interesting subject boring and dull, we’re not in school anymore. So.. so why would they need me? Why…” Heat prickled at Logan’s eyes, and before he even knew it a cascade of tears ran down his flushed cheeks. “Why would Thomas even need me?” 

An unreadable expression crossed Deceit’s face as soon as Logan slumped back into the cushion that he had been seated on, a look that was somewhat mixed between righteous rage and heartbreaking understanding that mostly left Logan confused. He didn’t understand it, Deceit had no reason to be angry, and he had no reason to even try to understand Logan’s stupid feelings. He had spoken the truth, hadn’t he? What use did Thomas have for him now? 

Deceit’s ungloved hair tenderly brushed a lock of Logan’s long hair back out of his face, “Logan,” He kindly said, “I’m going to get you out here okay, you look tired so.. so go ahead and rest alright? You won’t need to worry, when you wake up. Everything will be taken care of.” He whispered, as the logical side blearily nodded his head. He didn’t care enough to look into Deceit’s words, to see if they were a lie or if he was telling the truth. He was…He was so tired. 

So he didn’t move, or even fight against the other side as he felt Deceit’s hands curl under him gently easing him up and into his arms carrying him out of the room that he had unknowingly spent a month in. His face rested against the warmth of Deceit’s shoulder, his eyes slowly drifting shut as soon as the other side stood up moving towards the door. 

“You found him!”

Logan couldn’t even garner the strength to open his eyes at Roman’s familiar voice slamming against his once unconscious mind. He couldn’t even bring himself to bat away the hands that tried to pry him from Deceit’s grasp, and he couldn’t even voice his displeasure at being taken away from the side that had found him. He… didn’t want to go, especially not back with them. He wanted to stay, he wanted to sleep in Deceit’s protective arms forever, where he would be warm and safe. Where… he would be cared for by someone who actually wanted him around.

“I don’t think so,” Deceit’s voice hissed as his grip on Logan’s tightened, prying him away from Roman’s hands that tried to tug him away from the dishonest side. “Logan… enlightened me on a few things after I found him. Or more importantly, on a few things that he heard before he went missing.” Silence stretched between them all, as Logan found his head nestling right back on Deceit’s shoulder as another hair ran through his long messy hair, gingerly tugging the knots out of it. “He’s boring is he now?” 

Logan couldn’t see them, but he could practically feel how the others flinched back.

Patton nervously swallowed as Virgil let out an unamused hiss towards Deceit, “He.. he heard us?” Roman hoarsely whispered, and Logan could only imagine the horrified look on the creative side’s face, the way that his face would drain of color and just how his fists would clench and unclench with nothing to physically fight. “I.. we…”

“It was a joke!” Virgil roughly cut in, taking a step forward, either to fight Deceit or to seize Logan from his many arms. “It was just a joke!” 

“Some joke.” Deceit calmly returned the words, his arms curling even more around Logan in an effort to guard him against whatever Virgil would do. “Jokes don’t hurt others, Virgil, I thought that you of all people would know such a thing.” 

With that, the anxious side was rendered speechless, just as Roman was as well. To stew in their own guilt over something that the both of them would have given anything to take back. In the month that Logan had been gone many things had both changed and stayed the same, in that month they had all wondered what it was, what they could have done differently… or if it had been something that they had said that had chased Logan off. They had never known that Logan was quite literally right under their noses the entire time, dreaming in memories that had already passed them by.

Patton cleared his throat, “What.. what are you going to do?” The moral side merely asked, his voice calm and unbroken unlike Virgil’s and Roman’s. There was no mistaking the shame and guilt in his eyes though, knowing that he contributed to something that had hurt Logan very badly. This knowledge would be something that stuck with Patton, that what he had said.. that what all of him had said about Logan couldn’t be so easily shrugged off by the person in question, and that it really was… his fault. 

Deceit straightened up, his fingers running once again through Logan’s hair. “It’s simple really,” He coldly began, “Until Logan can trust you again… he will not be returning with you, he will stay with us… with people who will actually cherish and love him. Logan will decide it all,” Virgil’s mouth snapped open. “No, you do not get a say in this. None of you do, nobody but Logan will decide on where he goes from here.” Virgil’s mouth snapped shut, just as Roman and Patton’s did as well. “Understood?” 

Logan’s mind sank into unconsciousness once again, their voices all melding together into one until there was nothing at all, but the darkness that dragged him under. He didn’t fight it, as he slumped bonelessly into Deceit’s arms, falling asleep once again. 

Upon waking up for the third time, Logan found himself surrounded by cushions and blankets that were as soft as a feather and without a single speck of dust on them. His head had been tilted at an angle, giving him the perfect view of the room that he found himself in. 

The walls were a deep comforting blue speckled with the lightest shade of silver that he had ever seen, looking more like stars against the night sky. With thick curtains hung over the windows not letting in a single sliver of sunlight. While the carpets were a deep lush green, with little slivers of yellow to be found speckled amongst it. Books stocked the shelves around him, books and the occasional documentary that he had already seen before. His desk was there, as were the items that had been neatly organized on it. The only thing that seemed amiss was… the massive body that laid at the end of his bed like a guard dog guarding his feet in the night. It was..

It was Remus, sleeping as soundly as possible. 

A hand stroked through his neat untangled hair that had been gathered into a neat braid, and for a second Logan’s heart hammered in his chest as his head snapped over to the direction of the hand. 

“Good morning,” Deceit softly smiled, his gentle fingers combing through the stray locks of Logan’s hair yet again. And just like that, the tension oozed out of Logan’s body like butter melting on a warm slice of bread. “How are you feeling?” 

With everything that had happened, with everything that he had been through and the month that he had spent in Thomas’ memories, Logan had only one answer. 

“Better.”


End file.
